Mercury Work Gets Green Light

Project Starts In January

HAMPTON — Work to widen parts of Mercury Boulevard to eight lanes - including the conversion of some service roads to regular lanes - should begin in January, state officials announced Wednesday.

The roughly $24 million project is designed to make the road safer because cars will no longer dart in and out of the service roads, and the extra lanes will add capacity to the heavily traveled corridor, Virginia Department of Transportation officials said.

Similar improvements on Virginia Beach Boulevard in Virginia Beach made that road much safer and more efficient, said C.A. ``Al'' Nash, VDOT's Suffolk District administrator.

Eight-lane Mercury will be able to handle about 60,000 cars a day, up from the 40,000 that travel it now, said VDOT spokesman Bob Spieldenner.

``It will be less of a headache for motorists,'' he said. ``You won't have people cutting in and out.''

Traffic signals also will be timed better to cut travel times, he said.

While the improvements will let the road handle more cars, a recent study suggests more work will be needed to keep Mercury Boulevard from becoming a parking lot in 20 years.

A study from the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission this summer said the road will have between 60,000 and 100,000 cars a day by 2015, depending on which stretch of the highway is examined.

That study recommended that Hampton rein in residential development that feeds Mercury Boulevard, and it suggested the city do things to cut down on the number of vehicles in rush hour, like encouraging car pools and flexible work schedules.

The first phase of the project will begin in earnest in January, weather permitting, and should wrap up by September 1996. That 2.6-mile stretch, from Interstate 64 to the Newport News/Hampton line, will cost $9 million.

Work on the 1.8-mile section between King Street and Armistead Avenue is slated to begin in late 1995 and finish in 1997. That will cost about $15 million, Spieldenner said.

Small pieces of land fronting the street will have to be swallowed up by the road improvements, Spieldenner said. Public reaction to the plan was favorable at public hearings in 1990, he said.

AT A GLANCE

* The $24 million project will widen two stretches of Mercury Boulevard.

* The first phase, from I-64 to the Newport News/Hampton line, is scheduled to get under way in January.

* Work on the second phase, from King Street to Armistead Avenue, should begin in late 1995.